We Review Lady Gaga's New CD "Born This Way"

If you've ever wondered what it would sound like if Marilyn Martin had been a 70's disco diva, all you need do is listen to this track. After the tasty intro, the song shifts into full-on Giorgio Moroder mode, which is fine and good, but when the song ends, you realize that there was nothing really there to hang your hat on. The musical equivalent of cotton candy. Sadly, this song makes me wonder more what Marilyn Martin is up to than what crazy-ass outfit Lady Gaga might be wearing tonight.

BORN THIS WAY

Taken at face value, such lyrics as "Just put your paws up/Cuz you were born this way" make me wonder if Gaga didn't just equate gays to dogs or cats. As a whole, this is one of the stupidest sets of lyrics I've ever heard in my life - makes Rebecca Black's "Friday" seem like "The Long And Winding Road" by comparison. From the spoken word intro to, well, the rest of the song, it is a stone-cold miracle that Madonna didn't send a cease & desist. Ugh.

GOVERNMENT HOOKER

There's nothing less edgy than some chick who used to open for New Kids On The Block trying to be edgy on purpose. Thus, hearing Gaga coo "As long as I'm your hooker" smacks so blatantly of "Button Pushing 101" that it achieves the opposite effect. The song itself, hidden deep within a metric ton of all-too-familiar synthesizer bleeps and blips, is a third-rate rip-off of Dead Or Alive's "Brand New Lover". Honey, the original - going on thirty years old - sounds fresher than this day-old doughnut.

JUDAS

I am actually saddened at the thought of a generation of kids who will grow up to be adults who will have no other choice than to look back upon this as the music of their youth. This song, for all of it's polished pop sheen, is a Hollywood facade meant to pass for the real thing at a distance. Upon close inspection, you see it for the cheap styrofoam facsimile of C & C Music Factory that it is.

AMERICANO

May as well have called this "I Kissed A (Mexican) Girl". Meh. Opposite of edgy.

HAIR

Okay, I actually like this song. For once, Gaga dispenses with the painted-on BS and edgy posturing and seems to just sing from the heart. And you now what? In doing so, she is both likeable and at home in her musical surroundings. Me likey, mucho!

SHEIBE

Uh, not feeling this Nazi rally dance track. Next.

BLOODY MARY

Dammit, Gaga strikes again, delivering a song that is pretty down-to-earth and free of too much over-the-top nonsense. Sure, it sounds like Madonna circa Sean Penn, but I'm okay with that.

BLACK JESUS - AMEN FASHION

Okay, wow, if you wanna hear a song where Gaga doesn't even try to tone down the Madonna-isms, this is the song. Admittedly, it's a great song, but, if you were to play it for Madge, I think even she'd think it was her. Having said that, this is a song that makes you wanna walk through Times Square circa 1985, soaking up all the visual elements - from the seediest to the most serene - like flowers on a wooded path.

BAD KIDS

Gaga at her most clumsy and blatantly sloganeering..."Born This Way", broken home version.

FASHION OF HIS LOVE

Wait, didn't she already rip-off "Express Yourself"? On this one, though, I was able to sing Madonna's version all the way through to this one. Does she at least get a co-write? Didn't think so.

HIGHWAY UNICORN

This track seems to be an excercise in how many different ways you can cut-and-paste a single vocal line over the top of a dance track that features every synthy bell and whistle found on the new Venom analog synth from Avid.

HEAVY METAL LOVER

Play this song and I guarantee you that, wherever you are, the lights will turn to strobes bouncing off a mirror ball while some sweaty stranger dry humps you at 140BPM. As mindless as this track may be, it certainly knows its demographic - the clubzzz - and knows better to aim any higher.

ELECTRIC CHAPEL

Oddly, it's this song (and not "Heavy Metal Lover") that opens with a tasty metal rhythm guitar lick lifted from Motley Crue's "Looks That Kill" (which came out in 1983, mind you). Apart from that, this song was better when it was called "Total Control" and sung by Laura Branigan.

THE QUEEN

Somebody's mama listened to Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam while Gaga was in the womb. Just sayin'. Having said that, the song itself smacks of early Celine Dion. If combining Cult Jam and Celine before she married that creepy old guy is somehow genius, then Gaga's producers and co-writers are Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

YOU AND I

Oddly, it's this song that lifts with foot stomps and hand claps from "We Will Rock You" (and not "The Queen")...see a pattern developing here? Truth be told, the obvious attempt to provide something familiar for the fair-weather fans is completely unnecessary, as the song itself, while a little too similar to Anna Nalick's "Breathe (2AM), doesn't need such studio trickery. It certainly doesn't benefit from it, that's for sure.

THE EDGE OF GLORY

Something tells me that when Lady Gaga was a little girl, she dreamt of growing up and getting this song placed on the Top Gun 2 movie soundtrack. Hollywood being what it is, it could still come true (with Shia Lebouf playing the role of Pete "Maverick" Mitchell), and this would be the song. Here's the thing, for all I've read of how revolutionary Lady Gaga is, this song - if not the whole album - is 100% "set in the 80's". Most of her fans, of course, are too young (or lazy, or both) to realize this, so her supposed genius is accepted as fact.